


i’ll be the wind beneath your wings

by mechanicalUniverses



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Continued Comfort, Drugging, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships, Swearing, Timeskips, Trust Issues, Wing Grooming, mild descriptions of injuries, platonic displays of affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22000717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicalUniverses/pseuds/mechanicalUniverses
Summary: A story of Aziraphale taking care of Crowley throughout the years after he is kidnapped by Hell.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 62
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PepperVL](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperVL/gifts).



> hi there! this is my gift for [PepperVL!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperVL/pseuds/PepperVL) you gave me a lot of fantastic prompts to pick from:  
> “Something hurt/comfort, with as much comfort as hurt. I'd love something with Aziraphale rescuing/helping Crowley, but I'm open to the other way too.  
> Wing grooming. I'd especially love this in a queerplatonic way. Showing of trust etc.  
> Something with them relating to the queer community, especially the ace part (and maybe the aro part too). Maybe outsider POV?”  
>   
> so i combined a few of them together! this fic’s got hurt/comfort (though there’s more comfort than hurt), Aziraphale helping Crowley after he gets injured, and wing grooming in a queerplatonic way!! it was a blast to write, so i hope you enjoy reading your gift as much as i did writing it!
> 
> thank you so much [squidsticks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/squiddz/pseuds/squiddz) for the beta! 
> 
> without further ado, enjoy!

**Paris, 1793**

Crowley _hated_ Paris. The whole placed reeked to high Heaven of greed and murder, and it was a little hard to enjoy the river scenery when people were standing around and cheering for the drop of guillotine’s blade at all hours of the day. The only decent part about it in his opinion were the bars. Jaded bartenders slid him drinks without question. They easily recognized that he was a foreigner, presumably why they didn’t try to make small talk with him, either. He waved a hand, and the bartender slid him another scotch after collecting his coins.

He drank deeply, ignoring the particularly scratchy burn as it went down. Good. He needed a way to scrub the taste of blood haunting the back of his throat. 

Deep in the ethereal plane, his wings bristled in warning.

“Mind if we join you?”

Crowley grumbled lowly and rolled his head back to meet the gazes of—one, two, three— _six_ demon underlings, all dressed in the same horrible getup, and the unfortunately familiar leer of Hastur. “Yes,” he said shortly, “go away.”

Two underlings sat on either side of him; the rest stood behind him, trapping him between the oakwood bar and their pockmarked bodies.

Crowley growled and slammed his glass on the counter with a satisfyingly loud bang. “What do you lot want?” 

“We—”

“Shut up,” said Hastur. The underling promptly found they no longer had a mouth. The bartender met his eyes, holding an unnaturally flat stare as he slowly rubbed oily streaks into a perfectly clean glass with a dirty hand towel. When he blinked at Crowley, his eyelids came from the wrong sides. “The good word got back to Hell that you’re helpin’ _angels_ now,” Hastur continued. “Lord Beelzebub requested a meeting with you.”

The scotch froze and then melted as alarm jolted through Crowley’s fingers. “Really? I think that you’ve got me mixed up with someone else. An angel? Me? Come on.”

“We saw you, Master Crowley,” chattered one of the underlings excitedly, utterly unaware of Hastur’s glower, “we saw, you know, in the crowd that day—”

“—rowdying up the crowd, we were—”

“Good job,” said Crowley absently. Why was everything so muffled all of a sudden? And the lights so bright? The number of underlings he could see before him doubled as a smog began to chase the edges of his vision.

“—leaving with the angel from the Bastille—”

“And we smelled him,” growled another one. “We smelled him we did, all clean and _divine._ We knew it was an angel. We knew it was him.”

That would have meant he and Aziraphale must have literally walked right past them if they were able to smell them. A remarkable feat, considering the putrid stench of Hell that followed every demon like a shadow. Just imagining it made him want to gag. It was a repugnant mix of rotting, superheated flesh blended with sulfur and smoke; it was the smell of pure Evil. Surely one of them should have noticed it. But, then again, there was a lot of evil happening in the square that day…

“If you—If you have t’know”—speaking had become less of an effort and more of a fight with every syllable to force the words out—“he owed me a _favor._ I needed him out to—to—”

The lie was weak, and only weakened by his slurring and stumbling. Hastur’s face split into a smile, the strained kind that came from someone who’d only just learned how. “Favor? Aha! Haha! Do you think we’re that stupid? Do you think we would believe an angel would sink so low as to seek your help in the first place?” he sneered. Anger pushed Crowley to his feet and then he promptly collapsed to the floor. Distantly, he heard the door to the bar open as a flow of patrons streamed out. “You’ve lost your edge, Crowley. But don’t worry. We’ll help you sharpen back up.”

As the inky fog surged and his eyelids flickered like the sputtering oil lamp glowing overhead, two underlings wrenched his hands back and bound them together with a brutally tight rope. He thrashed, he snarled, he swore, he brought out his wings to furiously beat the ground, but whatever had been put in his drink reduced all of that to nothing but pathetic mumbles and a heavy quivering mass on his back as his wings fell lifelessly into existence. The underlings descended like raptors, cackling and hooting excitedly as they took handfuls of his feathers and began to yank and pull and rip—

Crowley summoned a burst of energy with a snarl, sending a flash of electricity through his skin. The underlings skittered back for a second, hissing and spitting, but they swarmed him again almost instantly. Hastur laughed, distorted, and distant.

As his conscious faded to black, his last thought before he was hauled through the door to the bar was, _at least Aziraphale was safe._


	2. Chapter 2

Rain lashed against the panes of the windows, demanding entrance through the cracks in the glass. It was not used to being wholly barred access from any building in London. There were always tiny holes in roofs, ever a misfitted window to trickle through. But not this building. 

Aziraphale huffed as he pushed a massive cherry bookshelf across the floor. It did not occur to him that this would scuff the flooring, so it didn’t. He would have liked to use a miracle or two to arrange everything correctly, but given he had to be _rescued_ from the Bastille because he wasn’t able to perform more ‘frivolous miracles’ (just the thought made him roll his eyes), he probably shouldn’t. 

He dusted his hands off and stepped back to examine his work. His heel collided with a chest, and he only just managed to catch himself on a large wooden crate. When he nudged it out of the way, it caught on a loosened rotting bit of flooring. Perhaps he should have made the proprietor stay just a little while longer so they could at least get some base remodeling done. 

Moving into his new shop was thrilling, but he was sure his mouth was going to fall right off after all of the smiling and talking and agreeing he’d had to do to move things along. And he still had to deal with the vast amount of books, scrolls, tablets, art pieces, and other assorted trinkets he’d acquired over the centuries. Presently, they were all carefully wrapped and stored away. Inventory was going to be a nightmare, especially after learning the ship coming from France to England carrying the last of his items had gotten caught in this storm. It would be fine, hopefully ( _probably_ Aziraphale insisted), but for now, all he could do was wait.

As he surveyed the scene, he could not help but feel that the shop was paradoxically cluttered and empty. The floor space was open enough right now, but there were pillars of books sprouting from partially unloaded crates all over the place, and even more shoved against the walls. Corners glinted with cobwebs hanging over planks of unassembled shelves. Furniture, some purchased new, some not, was shoved into one such corner for the time being, covered in brown paper to protect them from the wax drippings from the dull candle holders just barely clinging to the barren walls. Aziraphale watched as a draft of wind finally succeeded in sneaking through the space to blow out one of the candles with an acrid puff of smoke.

At that moment, a dull _thud_ sounded from his door.

“Goodness,” said Aziraphale. Someone must be seeking refuge from the storm. Of course, as a host of humble Heavenly virtues, he would oblige—so long as they did not touch the books. He bustled over to the door, fussing with the rusting lock for a brief moment before wind tore it from his hands and slammed the heavy doors open with a startling bang, revealing a huge, hunchbacked figure.

“Come in!” he exclaimed. “It’s positively dreadful out there.” A flash of lightning illuminated a familiar sharp face. “Crowley? What are you doing out here?”

“Hey, angel.” Crowley looked, to put it in the gentlest terms possible, terrible. 

His hair, usually so meticulously styled, hung in lank, dripping strands around his shoulders. His sunglasses were missing, and his eyes were entirely yellow—a sharp contrast to the black and blue bruises sprawling all across his jaw and his cheeks. The hunchbacked shape could be sourced to his wings, which were out and held awkwardly.

Aziraphale gasped. “What happened to you? How—?” He reached out, but Crowley harshly smacked his hand away even as he leaned towards him. Unbalanced, he careened into the doorway and swore loudly.

“‘M sorry,” he hissed, clutching his shoulder. “Didn’t know where else to go.”

Crowley’s eyes rolled up and he pitched forward. Aziraphale rushed to catch him, stumbling as Crowley collapsed into him. He grunted and lowered them both as gently as he could to the floor, a task hindered immensely by Crowley’s massive wings.

“Oh, my goodness, alright—down we go, that’s it, dear boy…”

God in Heaven, what had happened to him? Aziraphale’s hand went to his mouth as he knelt beside Crowley’s crumpled form. For the longest time, he could only stare in mute horror at the still-bleeding cuts littering Crowley’s body, the blooming black bruises, and his wings, oh, his _wings._ He had to look away. 

“What happened,” he mouthed again uselessly. His hands hovered fearfully over Crowley’s body, desperately wanting to do something, but equally resenting the possibility of causing harm instead. Even as he sat, Crowley moaned dismally into the floorboards and curled in on himself a little more.

“S’rry,” he slurred, more breath than a distinct syllable. “Gimme—gimme a sec—hah, _fuck…_ ”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aziraphale said. “You’re in hardly any shape to talk, let alone do something foolish.” A low rumble of thunder shook the floor. “You’re in my care now. Let me help you.”

“S’not… you don’t have to help, I know you don’t want to.”

“Just what is that supposed to mean? Of course I do.”

A tremor went through Crowley’s body, and Aziraphale realized he was _laughing._ “‘Cause yer ‘n _angel._ Tha’s it.” He paused. “Maybe if I was something else. Wasn’t a demon, you’d want to. I get it.”

“That just isn’t true!” Aziraphale snapped, hurt, though he did not know why. It was not as though Crowley was wrong; he did want to help, and yes, it was likely a result of his angelic nature. But was that truly all? It mustn't be if it stung this much. “I’m moving you to the back of the shop. Someone could see you. Hold still.” As if anyone else would be out in this storm when the rain was as hard and cold as blades, and the wind struck as hard as a whip against the creaking walls of his shop.

He spent a moment figuring out how to best move Crowley without aggravating him. Or rather, aggravating him the least, because it seemed not one square inch of flesh had been spared from some grievance. Aziraphale very badly wanted to snap his fingers and transport Crowley’s body the twenty or so feet he needed, but again, Heaven was closely watching him. Forget moving a shelf. If they caught him using miracles on a demon to heal him instead of outright killing him while he was at his most vulnerable, the consequences would be far worse than a letter of condemnation. 

_He said he knew you wouldn’t want to help him, and he came anyway. He said he had nowhere else to go, and he came to_ **_you_** _. Answer him; will you let him die? Will you let him die because you are afraid to do what you know is the right thing?_

Aziraphale uttered an unsavory phrase under his breath and deemed Crowley’s right shoulder to be in the best condition to be handled. “I’m picking you up now,” he told Crowley, who did not react to his voice or the hand he placed on her shoulder. He pulled Crowley up, draped one arm over his shoulders, and stood slowly, waiting for a whimper of pain, a gasp, or a curse. All he got was a faint, “M’ugh.”

Aziraphale slowly dragged him towards the back of the shop, skin crawling as the limp ends of Crowley’s listless wings left streaks of blood on the floorboards so dark they almost looked black. All of the clutter moved aside under his glare, creating a path to what would eventually become his nook. In it sat a new sofa, a desk whose surface was hidden beneath haphazardly stacked piles of books, and a few more unassembled shelves. He snapped his fingers as he approached. The sofa stretched to become much broader and longer, probably more so than necessary, but there was no time to be picky. Another snap and an array of squashy pillows appeared at one end. 

“I’m going to try to patch you up,” Aziraphale said as he carefully sat Crowley down into a slouched seating position. Crowley’s eyelids blearily twitched open. Aziraphale sucked a breath in through his teeth. “They roughed you up, my dear, but that won’t be a problem. You’ll be raring to go quicker than you can say ‘crêpes!’”

Crowley groaned again at that. “You and your bloody crêpes. S’why I got caught up in the first place.”

A horrible chill shocked his body. “What?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s—Shit, ow _—_ Don’t worry your pretty head about it, angel.”

“Pardon me, but why the _hell_ should I not worry?”

“Later.” Crowley slumped sideways against the pillows, carefully keeping his wings out of the way. “Just—if you’re serious about helping, talking’s only going to make me die quicker.”

Aziraphale bit his lip. “We’re talking about this later,” he warned. “But for now…” A fluffy white rag appeared in his hand. “You’re probably going to want to bite this.”

* * *

Aziraphale collapsed into his armchair, shoulders, neck, and hands aching something fierce. Exhaustion pricked his eyes, a sensation he had been more than happy to leave behind in the chaos that was the European Renaissance. His discomfort was likely nothing compared to that of Crowley, who was fast asleep on the sofa and bandaged and cleaned up to the best of Aziraphale’s ability. The bruising and swelling faded with minimal trouble at least, but the same could not be said for the rest of Crowley’s more grievous injuries. 

When it came to cleaning and closing of the lacerations, Aziraphale had almost wept at the sheer amount of cuts and gashes littering poor Crowley’s body. It’d taken hours to close all of them; Crowley’s flesh heavily disagreed with his holy touch, flaring up angrily if he sustained it for more than a minute. It had taken them well into the night, possibly into the early morning, to heal all of the cuts he could find. Most of them would leave scars. Aziraphale prayed—no, that would probably worsen the process— _hoped_ they would fade with time. 

Setting the broken bones of his fingers and wings was easily the most taxing portion. He’d healed the fingers alright but had only gone so far as to splinting Crowley’s wings. Coaxing the wayward shards of bone scattered in the lean muscle of Crowley’s wing to return to their places had taken everything he had. By the time he finished, he was too exhausted to deal with detailed, meticulous work like rearranging Crowley’s feathers back into their usual sleek uniformness, so they were still bent and broken in huge patches, stiff with blood.

Despite that, he felt he’d done what he could. He wished, gaze lingering on the colorful strips of bruises peeking between the bandages, he could do more. But his reserves of medical supplies were already woefully low before Crowley had stumbled inside, plus he had started running on fumes of miracle energy about four hours ago. He felt scraped empty and raw. But Crowley was not in danger of dying in his sleep and that was going to have to be good enough for the time being.

Crowley’s face pinched as he mumbled into his pillow in his sleep. Aziraphale bit his lip.

Maybe _one_ more miracle.

He wearily held up his hand and murmured, “May you dream of whatever you like best,” and snapped his fingers. An unpleasant zing went down his arm, but he could forgive it as Crowley sighed contentedly and seemed to fall into a deeper sleep. “I’ll be here. Rest well, my dear,” he sighed. 

Satisfied, Aziraphale slumped back down in the chair and settled his chin on his chest, absently rubbing his thumbs. His gaze lazily roamed about Crowley’s body for any cuts he may have missed or had been reopened. Crowley had set his progress back a couple of times when he’d awoken with Aziraphale’s hands on him. Evidently distressed, he reacted the way anyone would expect a scared and injured person to react: thrashing, yelling, hitting, hard, wild unrecognition blazing in his bruise yellow eyes. It made Aziraphale ache in a peculiar way. _You’re with me,_ he wanted to tell him as he shushed and consoled him, _you’re with me, you’re safe here, what’s the matter with you?_

Eventually, Crowley passed out a final time. He had not awoken since, but the feeling still had not settled. It prickled Aziraphale even now, prodding and persistent like the loose threads of missed stitches in his clothes. But as insistent it was, it could not push through the rubbery numbness of exhaustion. Introspection could happen later. He needed some rest.

A cracking yawn forced its way out of his chest. Crowley had lauded the glories of sleep on a few occasions. Perhaps now would be the time to see what the fuss was all about. Just a few minutes, and he’d be ready to go.

He took one final glance at his unfinished packing job, at the scattered books, the trail of blood, and then, at last, at Crowley. 

“Be right here,” Aziraphale said quietly as he finally let his leadened eyelids slip shut. “Right… here…”


	3. Chapter 3

Aziraphale awoke ungracefully. When he blearily cracked his eyes open to sunlight pouring into the shop, the very first thing he saw was a mass of black sprawling before him. With a yelp, Aziraphale slipped right out of the chair and landed hard on his rear. It took him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize the mass had just been one of Crowley’s wings. He quickly stood, flustered as he rolled uncomfortable cricks and knots from his shoulders.

Crowley had not moved much since Aziraphale had fallen asleep. The pillows had shifted a bit, so he righted those and readjusted Crowley a bit; the sunlight gleaming through was making a brave attempt at creeping towards his face. He merely grunted a bit and accepted his relocation without stirring.

The storm had blown itself out overnight, judging by the slice of eye-watering bright blue sky in the window. Thank goodness. The gloom that seemed to have permanent residence over Soho was becoming tiresome, though Aziraphale knew what he was getting himself into when he signed the lease. He ought not to be complaining.

Still, a change was nice.

For a few minutes, he sat and watched Crowley sleep. Then, electing that was a little off-putting, he decided to continue putting his shop together. Crowley didn’t look like he would be waking up anytime soon. It was only nine-thirty in the morning. The day was his, ripe for picking. 

He stood and stopped cold before the smudges of blood on his floor. It’d dried overnight and was now completely black, or at least an impossibly dark brown. His clothes likely had matching stains from when Crowley collapsed into him. He had—he had nearly said no. He had almost said no to Crowley, his… his…

What was Crowley to him? His friend, certainly. But friend didn’t quite fit. Friend couldn’t fit, not after having been through nearly six thousand years of life on Earth together. Partners? In the unromantic sense? Could he say that without having discussed it with Crowley? Probably not.

He fidgeted with the cuffs of his coat, glancing back to Crowley’s sleeping form as though he would be awake and complaining about how loud Aziraphale was thinking. What Crowley had said while he bled out on Aziraphale’s floor… he had been right—to an extent. Aziraphale was an angel. An angel’s duty was to protect those who fell under their care. Currently, Crowley was under his care; therefore, he was going to take care of him. Yes, he was a demon, and yes, Aziraphale, by all the logic and all the rules burned into his very being, technically shouldn’t be nursing him back to health. But first and foremost, he was Aziraphale’s friend. He thought Crowley knew that, but evidently, he was incorrect.

The heavy ache from last night returned, accompanied by guilt. Both settled like hot stones in his gut. Had—had Crowley concluded that Aziraphale honestly did not like him? But why would he still offer drinks and lunches together and walks in the park if he thought Aziraphale didn’t like him? Did he consider Aziraphale to be his friend, but not the other way around? That didn’t make sense. If that were true, why would he stay? Why not throw in the gloves and walk away?

_ Didn’t know where else to go. _

He had come to Aziraphale. Despite everything, he had come to Aziraphale.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Crowley. “I was foolish. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me.”

As it turned out, demon blood did not budge when one attempted to miracle it away, so Aziraphale spent a bit of time hemming and hawing until he had the idea to dig up his spare vial of holy water from where it had been buried beneath his recently acquired copy of the  _ Buggre Alle This Bible. _ He experimentally tipped a bit of it onto the stains. The second the holy water touched it, the blood began to smoke profusely and hiss like oil in a hot pan. Alarmed, he whipped around to see if it had woken up Crowley—it hadn’t. So he hurried and did the rest, wincing as piercing squeals joined the smoke and hissing. Crowley didn’t even twitch, which Aziraphale couldn’t decide was a reason for relief or concern. 

He checked Crowley’s temperature—hot, so he placed a clean rag dampened with cold water on his forehead. He tidied the blankets and unnecessarily fluffed the pillows (again). Then he tottered away for a few minutes to miracle the rest of his shelves together and float them about to where he saw fit. Nothing seemed to work, though. It was always too close or too far, too cluttered or too empty, too much or too little. He redid it around fourteen times before he gave up and decided to unpack his books. His hands got antsy, flitting randomly from crate to crate with no discernable logic in the way he pulled them out. Soon he was taking books out only to put them in another container. This wasn’t an effective method to soothe his frayed nerves. Perhaps tea would do the trick. 

As he was sipping the last of his tea from the mug, he happened to glance at the face of the now-unwrapped grandfather clock. It was ten.

It was  _ ten. _

_ Thirty minutes had passed. _

Aziraphale groaned and undid all of the miracles on the shelves. Maybe doing actual manual labor would take his mind off things.

As it turned out, it did. He couldn’t hammer the nails in with a lot of force if he didn’t want to wake Crowley up, though he was sure nothing short of the end of the world would wake him at this point. Most of his concentration went to making sure his hits were controlled and correct, but quiet. 

Around hour four, Aziraphale took another break. Fate must have it out for him because as soon as he straightened up, he spotted a couple peeking curiously through the windows. Purely by accident, he caught their eye. They waved at him and gave him a look that clearly said,  _ We’re coming in! _ Aziraphale’s mind went blank. The couple disappeared, then the door to the shop began to open. With a sharp clap of his hands, two of his new shelves slammed together to block his study-to-be and Crowley from sight.

“Goodness!” exclaimed the woman as she stepped in through the doorway. She had a parlous hairdo piled atop her head that looked a second away from toppling over. “Busy, are you?”

“No, no, not at all,” Aziraphale replied with a strained grin. A glance behind him revealed he had miscalculated where Crowley’s body was; the top of his red head was still visible. “How are you faring today?” he asked as he discreetly scooted over.

“Excellent, thank you,” beamed the man. He had a fashionably twirled mustache that he curled around his finger as he spoke. “And you?”

“Ah, well, been busy setting up shop.” Aziraphale swept his arm about the shop. “My last shipment should be coming soon if the ship didn’t get sunk in the storm.”

“I certainly hope not!” said the woman. She bent to examine a weathered scroll. “Are these authentic?” she asked, one gloved hand hovering over the yellowed parchment.

“Very.” It took a mighty good bout of restraint to keep himself from rushing over and placing himself between her and his scrolls. “I must ask you not to touch them.”

She immediately took her hand back. “Goodness, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“The devil would have your hand for less than that, Martha,” said the man. “So, is this a new museum, or…?”

“A bookshop,” Aziraphale said proudly.

The man squinted. “I don’t see a whole lot of books.”

“George,” chided Martha, placing a soothing hand on his arm. “Use your wits. The man’s clearly only been here a few days.”

“Quite right, my dear.” George sniffed his red nose, which made his mustache twitch. “Forgive me.”

“It’s no trouble, really,” said Aziraphale, and it wasn’t. “I—”

A loud, rumbling snore cut him off. George and Martha blinked and peered around.

“Is someone else here?” asked Martha.

“Erm—no,” Aziraphale said quickly. “I found a, ah, a family of squirrels that the previous owner failed to notify me about that has moved in upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” said Martha. She leaned around, trying to look around Aziraphale. Her hair swayed precariously.

“Those sound like awful big squirrels,” muttered George, twirling his mustache as he stared intensely at the walls as though he could pull squirrels out from them by the strength of his gaze alone. “You look new in town. I know a good exterminator if you—?”

“It’s quite alright, I can handle it myself,” Aziraphale told him firmly. Another snore ripped apart his lie like wet tissue paper.

“That sounds bigger than some squirrels,” said Martha uncertainly. 

“It isn’t,” Aziraphale said shortly. “Now, I hate to rush you out, but I need to finish unpacking. These, erm, books, they don’t do well in direct sunlight, you see, and I really must continue before irreversible damage is done to them.”

Neither of them seems to notice his urgency. They just kept stupidly looking around for any sign of a ‘squirrel.’ Aziraphale huffed through his nose. Behind his back, he made a series of short, sharp tugging motions with his hand. A small metallic tinkle sounded. Then another, and another, all coming from Martha as pin after pin dropped out of her hair, until—

“Oh, no!” she wailed. She clutched her head as her hairdo finally slumped over, strands and chunks hanging down at random like blond ribbons. It now resembled a melted wedding cake. “George, what happened!”

“How would I know, you won’t let me touch your hair when you do it!”

“It must be the humidity from the rain. It always does horrid things to my hair—Oh, what am I to do? We have lunch at the Thompson’s soon! I can’t go looking like this!”

“Perhaps if you hurry back home, you can”—Aziraphale motioned running his fingers through his hair—“fix up something else?”

“Yes,” murmured George, “yes, I think we could do that. Martha?”

Martha did not indicate hearing him. She was knelt on the floor, trying to pick up the bobby pins. “I just don’t get it,” she kept muttering, “this has  _ never  _ happened to me before!”

“First time for everything, I always say!” Aziraphale said cheerily. 

“Oh, leave the pins,” George said irritably, striding over to her to help her up, “you have a hundred of them back home.”

“But—”

“It’s fine,” Aziraphale assured her. “You don’t want to be late, do you?”

George ushered Martha out the door without another word. The second it shut, Aziraphale locked the door and blew out a long breath. That had been too close. He should’ve locked it when Crowley had come in, but he’d forgotten amidst all of the chaos. 

Another grating snore interrupted his thoughts, but it was cut off by a cough and a moan of pain. Aziraphale immediately miracled the shelves back to their original positions and rushed to Crowley’s side. His face screwed up in pain, but he blearily squinted up at Aziraphale as he knelt to face-level with him.

“M’angel?”

“Yes, yes, it’s me, Crowley.” 

Crowley groaned again and dramatically threw his arm over his eyes. Aziraphale whimpered, “Be  _ careful! _ ”

“Bright.”

“I can close the curtains if you’d like, but please move more slowly! I’ll be upset if you undo all of my work.”

That gave Crowley pause. Aziraphale bustled off to shut the curtains, plunging the room in a soft, dark red. When he returned, Crowley was examining his bandaged arms as though he’d never seen them before. He stayed quiet as Aziraphale tugged the armchair over and sat down beside him.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “So…” he started awkwardly. “How are you feeling?”

“How am—how am I  _ feeling?  _ Peachy. Perfect. Never been better.” Ah, he was already back to being bitingly sarcastic. That had to be a good sign. Aziraphale’s mouth twitched into an appropriate imitation of a smile.

“Would you like me to leave you alone so you can sleep?”

Crowley blinked at him, then seemed to go through quite an effort to swallow. “Nah. Gonna get out of your way.” Crowley pushed himself upright, or at least tried to. His arms wobbled, and he collapsed back into the pillows, hissing, “ _ Shit. _ ”

Aziraphale’s smile vanished. There it was again, that feeling, that churning ache deep in his gut. “You’re not in my way at all, my dear. You can rest here for as long as you need to.”

Crowley leveled him with a disbelieving empty stare. But he blinked and turned his head away so that stare was directed at the ceiling instead. “Thanks,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

“Of course.” Now that he had his energy back, Aziraphale’s hands itched to rearrange the mess of feathers that were Crowley’s wings. It looked so uncomfortable, all broken and disarranged like that. His wings shuddered in sympathy. He opened his mouth to ask if he could do something, but what came out instead was, “Have you tried hot cocoa yet?”

“No.”

“Would you like to? It’s delicious.”

Crowley’s cheeks twitched as though he were working his tongue inside his mouth. “Sure, why not. My mouth tastes like something died in it anyway.”

“I’d imagine. I’ll be right back.”

When he returned with two steaming mugs of cocoa, Crowley seemed to be a little more coherent. He’d managed to sit up properly, and he was absent-mindedly kneading the bend in his right wing at the end of its arm.

“Does it hurt?” Aziraphale asked as he set the mugs down on a tray and pushed one towards Crowley, who raised his eyebrows. “I mean—more than the rest?”

“I mean, yeah.” He picked up the mug and sniffed it. “What’s in this?”

“I put some cinnamon in, but otherwise it’s milk, sugar, and chocolate.”

“Hm.” Crowley took a sip and didn’t immediately spit it out in a spray like he usually did if something was not to his taste, so Aziraphale could only assume it was alright. “It’s sore. I’ll get over it.” 

“What…” Aziraphale floated a hand up and down as he drank. “Caused this?”

Crowley blew a long, deep breath from his crooked nose, and the bit of energy he’d managed to regain drained out of him. “You’ll be mad if I tell you.”

“I won’t. I swear it.” 

Crowley’s eyes went flat and dropped to his lap. “They found out I helped you escape the Bastille.”

Aziraphale’s cocoa suddenly tasted like ash. He set the mug down and rasped, “How?”

“They had agents posted in the area. Guess they got interested in the amount of evil happening in the square.” Aziraphale nodded faintly. “Anyway they saw us leaving—smelled us, too, that’s how they knew it was you. They waited ‘til I went into a bar I frequent, drugged me, and then, well.” Crowley rolled his head around as if to say,  _ Here we are. _ “They ‘roughed me up a bit.’”

“I’ll say.” Aziraphale bit his lip, remembering,  _ If my people hear I rescued an angel, I’ll be the one in trouble, and my lot do not send rude notes _ . “My dear, I’m—I’m sorry, if I hadn’t been so senseless—”

“It’s not your fault, Aziraphale,” Crowley sighed. “I chose to rescue you. I knew the risks.”

“But still.” He squirmed. “I must take some responsibility.”

“Go ahead. It won’t change anything.”

The air hung stagnantly between them. 

“I never did get to give you my congratulations,” Crowley said abruptly. “Meant to.”

“For—oh, for the shop?”

“Mmh.”

“Why, thank you.”

Crowley resumed the massaging of his wing. Aziraphale watched.

“At least let me return some of the favor,” he said after a moment. “Your wings.”

Crowley glanced at where he’d been picking at a blood crusted feather. “Ah. Yeah.”

“May I…” Aziraphale nervously licked his lips. “May I help clean them for you?”

“Nah, ‘s fine. I’ll manage.”

“I don’t doubt that. But I thought you wanted to leave sooner rather than later?”

“Want me gone that badly, huh?” Crowley’s smile was sarcastic, teasing, but Aziraphale frowned anyway.

“Well, no—yes, because then that means you’re doing better, but—oh, I do wish you would stop saying those things,” he huffed. “Is it such a crime to help you?”

Crowley snorted. “Obviously. Look what happened to me. You just haven’t been caught yet.”

Aziraphale glanced away to one fascinating drop of rain on the windowpane. “Damn my punishments,” he said quietly. “I just want to help.”

_ Please, let me take care of you. _

Crowley stopped fussing with his wing and fixed Aziraphale with his searching yellow eyes. They were careful, shining and fragile as spun glass still glowing bright from the molten forge. If Aziraphale were to move now, to take back what he said, he might very well shatter Crowley. The longer those eyes were on him, the more of him Crowley could see, as though he were burning away layer after layer after layer—

One black wing was offered to him. Aziraphale only stared for a second before he settled his hands on it and smiled. The feathers that weren’t damaged beyond repair were like the most delicate silks beneath his fingers, shimmery and soft. 

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“Make it quick,” Crowley mumbled. 

Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and the cocoa disappeared off of the tea table. It was replaced by a large pail of water, linen towels, some scissors of varying sizes, and a shrunken pair of forceps. After a brief examination, he dunked one of the towels into the water, wrung it out, and placed it over Crowley’s secondaries. Most of the damage seemed to be centered there, and would probably require a lot of pulling. Crowley grunted at the contact but otherwise seemed unbothered.

He began with the pulling and clipping of Crowley’s broken and damaged primaries. The barbs went without too much resistance since the feathers were fully grown in at this point, and the only thing Crowley lamented about was how long it would take for the missing slots to grow back in. It didn’t look pretty, true, but at least he was alive. Aziraphale pointed all of this out to Crowley, who huffed.

“What, would you rather have died?”

“I suppose not. Big hassle, dying.”

Once a pile of black feathers had accumulated on the floor, Aziraphale took the rag and began to clean the blood off gently. Wrap, squeeze, soak, rinse, repeat. He repeated the motions until the bucket of water turned dark and the covers were soaked an unpleasant brown from the drippings. The feathers had gained a much more uniform sheen to them, all iridescent emeralds and amethyst hues that shimmered beneath the droplets of water. Slowly, Crowley allowed his wing to drift further and further until it was entirely laid back against the pillows and into Aziraphale’s lap. It had a pleasant weight to it. Solid, but not overbearing.

“Comfortable?” he said dryly as he ran his fingers through Crowley’s feathers. Crowley’s eyes, which had slid shut at some point, reopened. He muttered an apology and lifted his wing again. Aziraphale bit his lip. That wasn’t what he meant but, well. What was done was done.

“How much longer is this going to take?”

“Erm.” Heat flushed his cheeks. The sky outside was rich, so deep it was blurring the line between blue and purple. It must be around early evening now and Aziraphale had only worked through half of Crowley’s wing. “I’m nearly finished with this one, yes. There is—more than I was expecting.”

This was true for the most part. The patches where feathers had been ripped out were proving to be a challenge. In addition to having to pull many more broken barbs, some of the spots had been infected, which made the dark flesh of Crowley’s wings feel hot and tender beneath his touch. He had finished with the barbs, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed with the infections. Aziraphale hovered his hand over them, gauging the risks of using his abilities.

“You will tell me to stop,” Aziraphale said, holding up one light-shrouded hand. Crowley swallowed and nodded. Slowly,  _ slowly _ , Aziraphale passed his hand over the areas, watching as the open wounds from the pulled barbs closed and feeling the skin cool slightly. It was achingly slow work. Crowley could not suffer through more than around five seconds of his direct powers, which forced Aziraphale to back off every three and wait. Despite his caution, Crowley told him through gritted teeth to back off a few times, which made him feel absolutely horrible for hurting him in the first place.

His work was slowed even further as he neared Crowley’s body. The parts of the wing there were far more sensitive. He twitched every time Aziraphale touched him, to the point where he very nearly gave up and started his work on the other wing.

“It’s fine,” Crowley said, but Aziraphale shook his head.

“Clearly not. You’re obviously uncomfortable.”

“No, just—it tickles a little.”

“It tickles?”

“Yeah.” Crowley hunched his shoulders. “What?”

Aziraphale forced his smile away. “Nothing. I simply didn’t expect it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m full of surprises.”

Aziraphale placed a wet rag on a particularly crusty patch of down. Crowley watched as he took up the tweezers and began to pick apart the clump.

“Is that why this is taking so long?”

“Would you rather me not?”

Crowley’s mouth twisted oddly. “I—I got things to do. I escaped, you know—”

“Awful brave of you.”

“They might come looking for me again. I don’t want to be here if they do.”

He couldn’t read Crowley’s face beyond what seemed to be discomfort. One would think he would be able to. Six thousand years, and all of that. But he couldn’t. Something cold settled in the bottom of his heart. “Of course. I’ll—I’ll fix the next one up, and you’ll be on your way by… by tomorrow morning.”

He kept his head down for the rest of the time. If he tried to slow down to fuss with what could be considered the more cosmetic spots, Crowley began to fidget. So he went on. He stopped a couple of times to shoo away curious persons, sweep up the fallen fathers, and get new water. It wasn’t  _ stalling,  _ per se, it was all necessary. Very necessary. Still, he found himself working on the other wing far sooner than he wanted.

_ Wanted? _ he wondered. What did he want?

Crowley fell asleep at some point after he’d removed the rest of the damaged and broken feathers on the second wing. That was one thing Aziraphale refused to skip. Those were by far the most uncomfortable thing he could imagine, and the hardest to reach if one was alone. Muffled chatter from the flow of people outside pushed through the walls of the shop, and then it too stopped as the sun sank once again beneath the horizon. It was dark by the time Aziraphale began on the second wing, and the sun was shocked to find the angel was up with its waking moments for the second day in a row. Once again exhausted from constant use of his abilities, he decided to give sleep another go. He bade Crowley a good night—a good morning if one wished to be tetchy—and settled down into his armchair. 

When he woke that evening, Crowley was gone. The only sign he had ever been there at all was a lingering smell of heat, and a single black feather curled up on the pillows.


	4. Chapter 4

**London, 1860**

The next time Aziraphale was permitted to touch Crowley’s wings was after several hours of easy drinking and chatting. Bottles crowded their feet and the legs of the coffee table. More surrounded Aziraphale’s armchair in a sloppy semicircle. They’d given up on drinking from their glasses long ago and were now taking swigs straight from the bottle. Aziraphale had his cradled to his chest; Crowley was using his to gesticulate heatedly about Hamlet. 

Everything felt a good deal more complicated now—more complicated to articulate, more complicated to think, more complicated to—to—yes. But it was an equally good deal easier to simply forgo thinking altogether and focus on Crowley. He was nice to concentrate on in a purely aesthetic sense, with all of his sharp angles smoothed out by his slouch, and his drawling voice going on and on about Shakespeare’s most recent sensation, and the way he used his hands to talk as though he were conducting the world's most chaotic orchestra, and how graceful he was as leaned forward to snatch a new bottle of wine off of the table—

Aziraphale blinked. Something was off. As Crowley settled back into the couch, he refused to move his right shoulder from its stiff posture even as he struggled to open the bottle. It remained stubbornly stuck to his side as he brought it to his stained mouth.

The question slipped right through Aziraphale’s wine-soaked lips. “Are you feeling alright?” 

“‘S  _ stupid,  _ could’a just talked to her an’—No!” Crowley exclaimed. Aziraphale closed his eyes against the volume. “No, of course not, Hamlet’s a bloody—bleeding dumb”—Crowley flailed his arm in a nonsensical gesture, though the wine in the bottle obediently stayed put—“idiot! Should’a just talked!”

Aziraphale nodded and hummed, though he didn’t know what Hamlet’s communication issues had to do with Crowley’s arm. It must be something if he was so passionate about it. He should be a good friend and at least sit supportively next to him in these trying times. Crowley did not pause in his rant as he scooted a few inches over to make room. 

“But Horatio—brave boy,” Aziraphale said somberly after he took another sip of wine, “he was all he had. Or so he believed. Would’ve ruined the story, I say. At least he wanted to help.”

Crowley weakly slapped his palm against the couch arm. “‘Cos Hamlet’s a self-destructive little—wha’s the word?  _ Prick. _ ” He smacked his mouth distastefully. “What’d you say?”

“I said, Horatio—”

“Nnno no, no, before, before.”

Aziraphale stared into the rippling depths of the wine. It was a pretty jewel color in the lamplight, all purple and red and purple-red. “I’m not sure,” he eventually said. “Asked if you were alright.”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

In all of his infinite wisdom, Aziraphale poked Crowley’s arm. He blankly stared at Aziraphale’s finger.

“This doesn’t hurt?”

“No? Why would—why would you poke it if it hurt?”

“I’m not sure,” he said again. He put his hand in his lap. “You were holding it funny.”

Crowley blinked a couple of times. “It’s my back,” he said carefully. He shifted over some so that their legs no longer touched. “Must’ve tweaked it.”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow. He wanted to say something. Something about how he’s sworn he’s seen this exact motion—the bizarrely applied posture, the walk, a wince of pain when he forgot and he reached with the wrong arm, but all of those memories were playing through a foggy window. Movements smeared together, details blurred, colors faded in and out of vividity.

He took too long to answer. Crowley was working to sit up, a sign that Aziraphale knew meant he would sobering up, and sobering up meant he would be leaving soon.

“Is that so,” he said.

“Yeah. Been like that for a while.” Crowley made a face. “What time is it?”

Aziraphale asked, “How long?”

“How long what?”

“Your back. How long has it been hurting?”

Crowley looked distinctly uncomfortable as he blandly said, “I dunno.”

Usually, Aziraphale would stop here. He wasn’t the prying type, or at least not the maliciously prying type. Crowley had made every clear sign short of telling Aziraphale to stuff it that he didn’t want to talk about it. But  _ Aziraphale _ wanted to talk about it, so his drunken mind decided that was enough reason to say, “Oh, don’t lie to me.”

Crowley scowled. “‘S not that big a deal, I dunno why you’re so pressed about it.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“ _ So  _ pressed. You’re on my back about it. Up my arse.” 

Aziraphale blinked. “But you’ve been in pain.”

“I’ve been worse.” Crowley drummed his fingers on the cushions. The very same cushions of the very same sofa Crowley had slept on when he came to Aziraphale, seeking refuge. A memory of Crowley sitting and rubbing his wing with his bandaged hand pushed through the fog.

Aziraphale attempted to straighten indignantly, but it was more of an aggressive sway. “Is it—is your wings? Are they bothering you?”

Crowley, finally caught out, slumped back into the sofa. “Ugh, dammit, angel. Fine. Yes. They have been since they had their way with me. Happy?” he said dryly. 

“Not really.” Aziraphale leaned towards him. “You’ve been in pain. How could I be happy about that?”

Crowley shrugged one shoulder. “I’m gonna sober up.”

He shut his eyes tightly and exhaled slowly. Aziraphale watched as around half of the bottles littered at their feet began to refill. He decided to follow suit, wincing as the alcoholic fog was whisked from his mind, and every thought hidden beneath returned with sharp clarity. A snap, and any wine that had managed to spill onto his lovely rug untangled itself from the fibers and zipped droplet by droplet into the mouths of the appropriate bottles. 

Aziraphale said softly, “I don’t mind helping you, you know.”

Crowley turned, and suddenly, Aziraphale was back again beneath yellow searchlights, piercing through even the darkest patch of brine. Two breaths went in and out. In, and out.

“No?”

With that single, wary word, a familiar ache flooded Aziraphale’s body. At once, he recognized it as the very same one from all those years ago, and his voice nearly caught as he said, “Not at all.”

_ You’re my friend; of course I wouldn’t mind. _

A series of unidentifiable emotions flickered across Crowley’s face. Then, a shimmery veil of reality lifted, and two great wings were presented to Aziraphale. 

“It’s along here,” Crowley said, reaching back and running his hand along the top of his right wing. It seemed Aziraphale was correct; he was sure this was the same wing Crowley had had issues with but left before Aziraphale could do anything about it. “It’s—It never healed right. It hurts all the time, but I can’t—” Crowley closed his mouth with a snap of his teeth. “Can’t reach it anymore,” he muttered, ducking his head.

“You poor thing,” Aziraphale murmured. Crowley curled in on himself even more and looked to be regretting coming here at all. Aziraphale bit his lip. “I had something similar happen once,” he began earnestly. “I earned a rather nasty break after a spar with Gabriel. It was an accident, of course,” he amended when Crowley jolted. “He apologized and everything.”

Crowley tilted his head. “Why were you even sparring in the first place?” he asked.

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “I think he took an interest in my duties as the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. It wasn’t every day an angel had to go  _ defend  _ anything. That meant there was something to fight. Look here,” he continued. He unfurled his white wings—too big, too cumbersome for this space—and pointed at a completely innocent looking spot towards the end. “He knocked me down, and then tripped on his robes and fell on me and—well, I couldn’t open it up for ages! It wasn’t until I discorporated for the first time and had to sit in the healing pools for a bit that it was restored”

He folded his wings over each other on his back, but didn’t hide them away altogether. Crowley idly watched him with mild curiosity. 

“Do you think I’ll need a healing pool?”

“Goodness, I hope not. There’s no telling what it would do to you.”

“Good point.” Crowley hefted his wing and pushed it into Aziraphale’s lap.  _ Better get on with it, then. _

Aziraphale kept talking as he worked. He wasn’t a good story-teller; he frequently split off from his current story, which led to a dozen other related tales or even led to somewhere else entirely. 

“When She created us,” he said as he smoothed over a patch of feathers over the injury and began pushing small circles into the flesh with his thumbs, “do you remember how we all looked more or less like a human child?”

“Not really.”

“Ah. Well, we did, and our wings were meant to be proportionate with our appearance. But mine never were. They were the same size then as they are now. I looked ridiculous, dragging them around everywhere. Oh, how Saraqael laughed when I tripped over them.” Aziraphale chuckled. “Oh, that reminds me…”

At first, Crowley stayed quiet as Aziraphale spoke. Eventually, he began to offer his own commentary without prompting, and then his own experiences too, and just like that, the stories started to flow.

It was remarkable that even after knowing each other for so long, they still did not know every single thing about the other. Aziraphale was endlessly amused by the recounting of the time Crowley spent five years scouring mountainous Japanese forests for a creature named ‘Tsuchinoko,’ only to realize there was a reason for its existence to be touted as legendary.

“Stop laughing,” grumbled Crowley. Aziraphale mimed zipping his mouth shut, but he still earned a light thumping with Crowley’s wing since he smiled the whole time. “How was I supposed to know? I don’t speak Japanese.”

“I do. You should have asked me to come with you. I would have said yes.”

Crowley, in turn, outright cackled when Aziraphale told him about the time he wandering about in a marketplace and accidentally tripped a gentleman into an enclosure of some particularly malevolent goats in his rush to try this new sweet.

“Marzipan,” he said with a gleam in his eye as Crowley laughed himself into a coughing fit. “It was hardly even worth the hurry. I’m sure it’s better now, though, the first batches of anything are rarely any good…”

“Oh, I’d expect nothing less from you, angel.”

Eventually, the words trickled away until they were sitting together in a pool of silence. Neither of them felt the need to go beyond it, so they didn’t. Bathed in the golden glow of his lamps, Aziraphale let his mind drift away from where his hands were rubbing at the tense knots of muscle running all up and down Crowley’s wing. Sharing his adventures with humans never was as fun since he had to revise his story as he told it to redact details that would certainly get more than a few raised eyebrows. It reminded him he had to be ever vigilant, which was plain exhausting. But with Crowley, he could relax.

It was the most natural thing in the world, relaxing, when it was with Crowley.

But, as everything was wont to do, it had to end. After all, Crowley must be uncomfortable. If last time’s experience was anything to go by, then Aziraphale had long since overstayed his welcome. The persistent ache confirmed this. Yes, the circumstances were almost violently different, but it still boiled down to the same stuff, didn’t it? 

“This is nice,” he said softly. “My apologies for taking so long, but you’ll be just about finished here in a moment.”

Crowley did not answer immediately. This was not unusual when it came to their conversations, but when he continued not to respond a whole minute later, Aziraphale had to nudge him. “Crowley?”

“Mmyeah.”

“I’m almost fin—”

“I heard you.” Crowley deeply inhaled as though steeling himself for something, and then pushed himself upright. He stretched and yawned unnaturally widely. “That’s better,” he mumbled. He shook out his wings and gingerly spread them wide. “Oh,  _ much _ better.” He flashed Aziraphale a sharp, genuine smile and tucked his wings away. “Thanks, angel.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. With a wave, he zapped their glasses clean and sent the wine bottles marching back to the rack. “Well, I suppose you’ll be on your way then?”

“What? Why? I mean—You can’t be serious.”

“Why ever not?” Crowley made an offended gesture at something behind Aziraphale. He twisted around, confused. “What is it?”

“Your wings!” he exclaimed, waving one hand up and down vigorously. “They’re a disaster! How have you never noticed?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said mildly. His feathers were admittedly much more unruly than Crowley’s, but that wasn’t his fault. He was a busy being. Grooming his wings was never a priority. “I don’t know. I don’t pay much attention to them.”

“Obviously,” muttered Crowley. “Come here, I’m fixing this mess. Can’t have a demon owing one to an angel, anyway.”

Aziraphale scoffed even as he let Crowley reach for his left wing. “You don’t owe me anything. I couldn’t bear it if I allowed anything, human, angel,  _ or _ demon to think they had some due to pay back to me when they were in mortal—or immortal—danger. That includes you, Crowley.”

“Well sheesh, angel, ya could’ve just said ‘no,’” said Crowley after a bashful pause. He sounded amused, but Aziraphale could have sworn there was some relief in there too. “Alright, fine then. We’re even.”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale said proudly. “With that out of the way, I can take offense to what you’ve said about my wings.”

“Took you a while,” Crowley teased.

Aziraphale huffed. “You distracted me.”

“Part of the job description, angel.”

“Is grooming an angel’s wings also part of the job description?”

“I mean— _ No,  _ but—” Crowley sputtered a little more before admitting defeat. Aziraphale hid his smile. “Okay, touché. But for your information, demons take  _ way  _ better care of their wings than you do.” 

“Really?” Aziraphale said with genuine surprise. Crowley rarely offered up tidbits about the culture of Hell, if one could call it that. Granted, Aziraphale offered even less in terms of Heaven, but it was enlightening all the same.

“Yep. More of a thing between the younger ones, though. They still want to hold on to something that sort of connects them with Her”—Aziraphale made a sad noise in his throat—“so they’ll come together and fix each other’s wings up like some troupe of monkeys. It’s terrible. Most of ‘em get bitter enough when they’re older to let it go, thank Satan, but they still menace some lesser demon into doing it for vanity points.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why do you do it? You obviously care about it more than I do, and there aren’t any—what did you say, gremlins, up here to do it for you.”

Crowley’s hands slowed to a stop, warm and steady on Aziraphale’s wings. A distant sheen glossed over his eyes. “Same as anyone else,” he said. “It looks good.” A pleasant prickle washed over his skin as Crowley combed and picked away stray bits of fluff and let them drift to the ground. “And… I guess I sort of miss the tradition. Not because I miss Her that much, just—”

He pressed his lips together in a thin line and resumed his work in determined silence. Aziraphale stayed quiet, focusing on the light tugging on his feathers and an odd, light feeling that followed each vane as it was moved back into its proper place. Back in Heaven, before he was commanded to safeguard humanity, grooming was done strictly out of necessity. It didn’t  _ mean  _ something, especially not in the way it meant something to Crowley.

_ Like a troupe of monkeys. Not because I miss Her.  _ There was something missing. Something vital to the core of Crowley. And in his own backwards and wildly indirect ways, he needed Aziraphale to help him replace it. 

A flood of  _ want  _ took him aback at first, just because of the sheer amount of  _ want  _ there. And then he relaxed because it felt so right, there was no reason to be afraid. The ache, which had been hiding behind his heart this whole time, alleviated a little.

He quietly offered, “We should do this again sometime.”

Crowley’s hands physically stuttered, but his hum of, “Should we?” came out nonchalantly.

“Well, probably not.”

“That’s not a no.”

“This is true.”

“But it isn’t a yes.”

“This is an excellent display of your observational skills, my dear.”

“Shuddup.” There was an audible smile in Crowley’s voice. “When?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought quite that far ahead. Whenever we feel like it, I suppose.”

“Pretty hedonistic for an angel.” Before Aziraphale could formulate a response, Crowley finished, “I knew there was a reason I liked you. Oh, that reminds me, there was the horrible little bow-tie I saw at the market the other day. It’s that—what‘d you say it was? Tartan? Tartan pattern, I had to get it for you…”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here it is, the final chapter! nessa, i hope you enjoyed your gift :D and to everyone else, thank you for reading along for the past few days! i love and appreciate you all!

**The Day After Armageddon**

Centuries passed. Humanity grew. The world morphed into something new and unrecognizable. The end of everything thundered on their doorstep and was sent away again. They lost—

_ I don’t need you. _

_ — _ they found—

_ Lift home? _

And somehow, the same angel and the same demon from six thousand years ago found each other in the storm.

_ You can stay at my place if you like. _

They huddled together for refuge inside of Crowley’s flat, tired—so,  _ so  _ tired—but they could not rest yet. The War was over, but the battle was not.

“They aren’t going to be happy with us,” murmured Aziraphale. He still had enough energy to anxiously pace before Crowley, who was sprawled in his… throne? It certainly  _ looked _ like a throne. “I mean—you saw Gabriel. He looked ready to smite me. And Beelzebub. Oh, we shouldn’t have antagonized them—”

Crowley listlessly stared at the ceiling as Aziraphale spoke, lazily swinging his sunglasses. “It was worth it, though,” he replied after a moment.

“I mean, of course, Gabriel’s face was priceless, but what are we going to do? They’ll send their armies after  _ us  _ as retribution for stopping their War!”

“Maybe.” 

“Twenty million angels and demons. All after me and you.”

“That’s a big number, alright.”

“We might be put to death, even. I doubt we’ll get a trial, not after everything we’ve done.”

“Probably.”

“Crowley, this is serious! Why—?”

“Angel,” said Crowley. He sounded so weary, yet a small, crooked smile pushed its way across his face. “C’mere.”

Aziraphale came. Step by step, until he stood before Crowley and his smile. He held out his hand. Aziraphale took it and sighed shakily as Crowley squeezed it.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale mumbled. “I’m just—I’m scared. For us.”

“We’re going to be fine,” Crowley said, in such a soft but knowing way that Aziraphale could almost believe him right away.

Almost.

“I—appreciate the vote of confidence, but how?”

Crowley rubbed his thumb along Aziraphale’s knuckles. “We’ll come up with a plan, and it’ll work. We’re smarter than all of Heaven and Hell combined. Gabriel thinks he has something going on up there, but we all know that’s a load of tosh.” Aziraphale chuckled weakly. “And Beelzebub—they’re crafty, I’ll give ‘em that much, but they learned it all from _me._ ”

“We can’t rely on wits—or lack thereof—alone!”

“And we won’t,” Crowley assured. “We’ve got something else, too.”

“And what may that be?”

“Time.” Crowley snapped his fingers. His throne morphed into a very cushy looking couch. He lightly tugged Aziraphale down. The red velvet cushions were precisely as plush as they appeared to be. “Beelzebub’s got to get all of their little minions in line again, and so does Gabriel. Dunno about angels, but demons are a rowdy bunch on a good day, and horrid little buggers on a bad one, and I would say this is a  _ very _ bad day for Hell.”

“What are you implying?”

“I,” said Crowley, “am implying that they aren’t going to break down my front door in the next thirty seconds, and that we can relax.”

Aziraphale let out a long breath and slumped against Crowley’s side. “You’re right. I suppose I got myself rather worked up.”

“I’ll say. I thought you were supposed to be the rational one.”

“Goodness, no, have you met me? Weren’t you the one to stop time just earlier today?”

“...I panicked.”

“Oh, dear.” With the initial rush panic mostly washed away, Aziraphale felt empty. Like the tide had come in and taken everything with it when it went back out. “Well, it was impressive, nonetheless.”

Crowley barked a laugh. “Don’t ask me to do it again anytime soon. I think I’ll discorporate.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You must be exhausted.”

“Could sleep for another hundred years,” Crowley said, and it was then that Aziraphale truly heard the exhaustion lacing his words. 

“Well, maybe not that long,” said Aziraphale. “I’d be lonely with you, my friend.”

Crowley glanced at him, a knowing glimmer sparkling in the corners of his tired eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Until morning, then. But if you wake me up before eleven, you’ll have bigger problems than Heaven and Hell to worry about.”

Aziraphale huffed a laugh and bumped his head against Crowley’s shoulder. “Go on then. We can discuss our strategy over tea in the morning. I’ll keep myself entertained. I’m sure you have a book or two somewhere around here.”

Crowley nodded slowly. After a few seconds, he stood up and strode over to a wall. He put one palm on it, then turned back to Aziraphale. Crowley was never one to look his age, but now the lines around the corners of his eyes betrayed a sort of ancient weariness that only came with seeing the beginning and the end of the world in your lifespan. “I’ll see you in the morning, angel.”

It certainly  _ sounded _ like goodnight. But there was an individual note of reluctance playing in Crowley’s voice that Aziraphale hesitated at. 

“Yes,” he said instead of pressing it. “Have a good sleep.”

“...Yeah. G’night.”

He pushed on the wall. Part of it swung open like a revolving door, and Crowley went through it. Before it shut, Aziraphale swore he saw Crowley turning to look back.

And then the door shut and he was alone.

Aziraphale blew out a long breath and drummed his fingers on his knees. Some tea sounded nice right about now. Or hot chocolate. Crowley didn’t seem like the type of person that would keep a kettle around, or even a pot. Or tea bags. Or anything to make any drink. Did he even have a kitchen? He did say Aziraphale was free to explore… 

Twenty minutes of poking about Crowley’s flat found him back in the living room with a couple of dusty books and a cup of coffee. As it turned out, Crowley did have a kitchen, but it looked so new and unused that it could have been photographed for an advertisement for a remodeling agency. Aziraphale almost felt bad for using it to make coffee, which was the only thing Crowley had in the cupboards. He wasn’t particularly fond of coffee, but he was desperate enough for something hot to drink to take it.

He sipped his coffee, grimacing at the taste. The flat was large, but there wasn’t much in it apart from some furniture and a few oddly specific art pieces. The sketch of Mona Lisa was particularly impressive. He’d only met the artist once, and that was when he went to get his portrait sketched with Crowley. Judging from the stories Crowley had told of him, da Vinci was quite the character. Aziraphale still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the vases. They were beautifully made, but they looked to be more like a last-ditch effort to make the place a bit more lived-in than actual decorations. The same was true for the books; the front covers were still glossy and stiff once he wiped the dust from them, and the spines crackled when he opened them up to read.

It took him almost an hour to get through the first chapter. It wasn’t that the content was dense. Even if it were, he’d become adept at processing even the most complex texts extraordinarily quickly. No, the issue was the anxiety shaking away in his mind. He pushed it aside for the first few pages, but as he went on, he couldn't but help pay more and more attention to it. It settled over him like an itchy robe and, as time went on, began to permeate his skin and gnaw on his bones. 

Aziraphale frowned. It was the strangest sensation, but he could swear that this feeling didn’t belong to him. When he stressed, there was a discernible reason for it that he would hunt down and fix. This time, he couldn’t begin to make sense of what precisely the problem was. 

If it wasn’t him, then…

Aziraphale gently shut his book. The half-full mug was left beside the couch as he got to his feet and took a few experimental steps towards the wall Crowley had gone through; the feeling immediately sharpened. He went to try and push open the same wall Crowley walked through. It opened startlingly easily, and Aziraphale was nearly hit in the behind by the door as he fell through it. He steadied himself and surveyed the… greenhouse?

Dozens of gorgeous tropical plants filled the room with colorful lush leaves and vibrant flowers. Some were enormous and nearly brushed the glass ceiling with their stalks, while others were much smaller and remained in plastic pots on small tables. For some reason, all of them appeared to be shivering slightly. Crowley clearly took excellent care of them. Aziraphale would have to tell him so later. 

After a few more seconds of gawking, he happened to glance upon a corridor. At the end was another statue. This one appeared to be two winged figures on top of each other and… wrestling. Definitely wrestling.

Uncomfortable, Aziraphale swiftly decided to move on. The prickliness morphed into thorniness, and he was extraordinarily gentle as he knocked on a closed door in a hallway off to the left of the statue. 

“Crowley?” he called softly. “Are you in here?”

For a moment, there was no reply. Then came a faint, “Yeah.”

“May I come in?”

“Yeah.”

He pushed open the door and entered. He could immediately tell that this was where Crowley spent most of his free-time. More tastefully positioned art decorated the walls, and there was a desk off to the right covered with random objects: more plants, quills, a doll, a few stones, a pocket watch, and even a glittering sapphire. Souvenirs from throughout the ages, he realized. He knew because he had an extraordinarily similar setup at the bookshop. Or rather, he used to have one.

Across from the desk, an enormous four-poster bed dominated the room. A mountain of red covers was piled on top of the bed. Barely visible from one end of it was Crowley.

“I was thinking,” started Crowley without prompting. “I was thinking, what if it all goes tits up? I know I’m a hypocrite, angel, but I can’t stop it.”

Aziraphale began to toe off his shoes. 

“I mean—They’ve got usss cornered. We know they’re coming. They know we know they’re coming.”

Aziraphale hung his coat on a newly formed coat hook on the back of the door.

“We could run away. They’ll probably find us. And then I guessss we could run again? And then that’s it. Zilch. No miracle’s getting usss out of this.”

Aziraphale came over to the bed and neatly slid himself beneath the covers. Crowley did not pause even pause once during his rant.

“I mean—twenty million! Twenty million angels and demonsssss—ugh, demons, can do a bloody lot of damage to Earth without an apocalypse! And—oh shit, what about Adam and hisss lot? Satan’s not gone, you know, but since Adam’s renounced Him as his father, He can—ngk, shsp—I dunno, kill him? Can He do that?”

“I doubt the Almighty would allow something so dreadful to happen to an innocent child,” Aziraphale soothed.

Oh, ‘cos She’s got such a spotless track record with children.” Finally, Crowley turned his head to look at Aziraphale. “I thought you were supposed to be reading?”

“You think awfully loudly when you’re stressed, my dear.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, my dear.” Obviously, Aziraphale was not pleased about Crowley’s distress, but secretly, it did bring him some relief to know he wasn’t overreacting. “What’s bothering you?”

“What’s—What’s bothering  _ me?  _ Nothing. I’m unbotherable.”

“Mm. Then what’s all this about the Lord of the Underworld and young Adam?” 

“Some worm in my brain,” Crowley muttered. He crossed his arms and frowned down at the bed covers. 

“Well, tell it to stuff it,” Aziraphale said. Crowley snorted. “I’m serious. You should listen to your own advice some time. Everything you told me not half an hour ago is still as true now as it was then. We have wits, we have time,  _ and”— _ he pulled the scrap of Agnes’ prophecy he’d caught from his pocket—“we have Agnes.”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

Aziraphale handed the scrap over for Crowley to read.

“Playing with fire…” Crowley said after a few minutes. His eyebrows were making a brave attempt at escaping into this hairline. “Probably means literal Hellfire. I don’t have a clue what the rest is supposed to mean.”

“Neither do I,” Aziraphale admitted. “But I believe interpretations of four-hundred-year-old prophecies should wait until morning. We already agreed stressing over any plans now will do neither of us any favors.”

“Right.” Crowley flipped the paper over, then gave it back to Aziraphale. “Erm. Are you staying here then, or…?”

“Oh—I can go, if you’d like, I just thought you’d like some company—”

“No, it’s fine. Um. If you’re staying, then…” he trailed off into an unintelligible mumble.

Aziraphale slightly furrowed his brow. “What was that?”

“Wiyouhepwimywings?

“What about your wings?”

Crowley turned a shade of red that matched spectacularly with his covers. “Blast it all, will you help me with my wings? Just until I fall asleep?”

Aziraphale smiled and beckoned Crowley to come closer. He scooted over, turned his back on him, and in the next instant, Aziraphale found himself spitting out a mouthful of Crowley’s feathers.

“You could have warned me,” he groused, picking down off of his tongue. 

Crowley made an apologetic noise that somehow did not sound at all apologetic. Aziraphale rolled his eyes and began working his fingers through the feathers. They were in excellent condition as always, so Aziraphale was mostly undoing Crowley’s work so that he could do it again. Judging by how he leaned back more and more into Aziraphale’s hands with each stroke, he didn’t mind. 

The scars had healed up wonderfully, Aziraphale noticed. The bumps were nearly undetectable by his touch. The old, damaged set of feathers were replaced entirely, having been through a few molts at this point. Aside from a few telling ridges from healed broken bones and slightly thinner patches of feathers, he could believe nothing terrible had happened that day.

“It seems you’re doing well,” Aziraphale commented.

“Mmhmm. Thanks to you, mostly.”

He smiled. “Is your right wing still bothering you?”

“A bit. Could you…? Mm, thanks.”

Aziraphale gently rubbed slow circles into Crowley’s wing with his thumbs. If one listened hard enough, they would be able to hear the footsteps of the building’s other residents. Occasionally, a burst of laughter or a shout would make it through the concrete walls. They quickly faded out, and they’d be left alone with the quiet sounds of their breathing and the rustling of feathers.

An hour went by in companionable silence, until Aziraphale uttered, “Crowley?”

A few seconds passed. Then, in a voice roughened by sleep, “Yeah?”

“Could I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“The night you were injured, and you came to the bookshop… why did you come to me if you were so adamant about leaving?”

Crowley’s brow twitched. “I thought—Wait, you don’t remember?”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever asked before.”

“Huh. Oh, shit, that’s what I forg—I mean. Of course. Must be thinking of something else.” Crowley coughed. “Uh. Okay, so I escaped, got a little fucked up by Hastur’s cronies, and well… I was paranoid. Can you blame me?” Aziraphale resumed stroking Crowley’s wing while he waited for him to go on. “And… I figured you were the best choice. I didn’t want to die. I’d be stuck Down there with Hastur for Satan knows how long. But once I got there, I didn’t—I wasn’t sure if you’d pick your duties as an angel or—or something else.”  _ Or me.  _ Aziraphale’s heart dropped.

“I—I won’t lie to you,” he admitted. “You were correct. I wasn’t sure. I almost didn’t want to use any miracles on you. I still feel guilty about that.”

Crowley nodded slowly as the words rolled over him. He didn’t look hurt, but he didn’t seem surprised either. “But you wound up helping me anyway, and I figured it was just because, well, y’know, he’s an angel, angels help people. And demons. Couldn’t believe it. So when I woke up and I just—I was convinced that wasn’t what you actually wanted. I still thought it was an obligation. And well, you had made your points about our natures enough that I figured getting caught out was the last thing you wanted. I wanted to get out so they wouldn’t find us both.”

Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek. “I was worried I’d done something wrong.”

“No, no. I just—you said you wanted to help, but I wasn’t sure if that was out of obligation or not, but I didn’t want you to get in trouble either way and—yeah. It was weird.”

“Again, you were right.” Aziraphale stroked his hair apologetically. “I’m an angel, and there was likely a divine instinct to take you in. I was hurt, you know, when you told me as much. Not because it’s true, but because I wanted to help you. You are, more than anything, more than either of our natures, more than Hell was to you or what Heaven meant to me, you are my dearest friend.” Aziraphale leaned over to make sure Crowley was meeting his eyes. “I knew the risks, and they were worth taking if it meant I could save you.”

“Oh.”

“Crowley, I am”—his breath caught—“I am so sorry I made you feel that way. You’re my best friend. I would never let anything happen to you.”

“I—That’s—The sentiment’s mutual, angel.” And then Crowley did something that surprised them both; he turned and tightly hugged Aziraphale around the middle. He squeezed tightly, burrowing his head into Aziraphale’s chest. “Thank you,” he mumbled. His breath puffed warmly through Aziraphale’s shirt.

Aziraphale wiggled his hands free from Crowley’s wings and placed one on the back of his head, and the other just under his wings. Then, he brought out his wings and and curled them around the two of them. They stayed like that for a moment, sharing closeness and warmth and something else that was indescribable, but it was warm, and it was safe. 

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he murmured, pressing his lips to Crowley’s head. “Now let’s get some rest, my dear. We have our biggest day yet ahead of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here’s the end! thank you all so much for reading! i’ll see you all next time :D have a wonderful New Year’s Eve—may this decade be one of hope and light!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! if you’re reading this, nessa, i hope you enjoyed your gift! for everyone else, i hope you enjoyed the story!
> 
> i will be posting this on tumblr too, so if you want to check it out, you can find it on my [blog!](https://scintillating-galaxias.tumblr.com/)


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